Lord Roberts of Llandudno: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress has been made in the establishment of the 69 new passport and interview facilities and the facilities for applicants from remote areas?

Lord Borrie: The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has helpfully explained the present position, in which the judge advocate will indicate the maximum and the minimum tariffs and the scope for discretion. The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, has explained how the president—if not the other members, but possibly them as well—will have experience of courts martial in previous cases.
	However, I find it difficult to see how that matches the enormous experience of sentencing of even the most junior, part-time judges in our civil courts and the Crown Court—recorders—let alone the experienced judges at the Old Bailey and elsewhere. They have not only been on numerous sentencing weekends and courses but have developed enormous experience in individual cases. Surely there is no comparison between the occasional experience of military and naval officers in courts martial and the experience of those who conduct sentencing in our civil courts.
	There is a certain logic, simplicity and clarity about the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, which, as he said, are also the proposals of the Judge Advocate General himself, Judge Blackett—namely, that the panel, the military officers, whether by a simple majority or, as others suggest, more than that, determine guilt and then someone else, the judge advocate in the court martial, determines sentence from the much greater experience that he will have over any likely president or member of the court martial. I see a great deal of merit in moving towards that division or distinction of responsibility. It is most notable that the Judge Advocate General, with his experience over a very long period in the services, has come up with something that he must know will not be easily accepted by those who reach the highest office in the armed services. We should take that view very seriously indeed and, if the noble Lord does not press his amendment today, no doubt he will bring it back.

Lord Garden: I shall not detain noble Lords for long. In moving Amendment No. 147 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 151 and 154 in this grouping. While we welcome in the Bill the identification of the welfare needs of the under-18s, presumably the welfare of all offenders is a cause for concern. My amendment seeks to make that clear by providing that we must have "particular" regard to the welfare of those under 18. Amendment No. 151 addresses reductions in rank in Clause 247. Here we are looking to identify what happens when reductions are made between different ranks, in particular thinking of the severe effects when someone of the rank of sergeant is reduced by one level. His or her social life changes; he moves from the sergeants' mess to that of more junior ranks, and there will be a change in accommodation that is a very visible downgrading. Often it may be appropriate to impose such a change in rank, but we should ensure that the Bill makes it clear that rank changes are affected by which ranks we are talking about.
	Finally, Amendment No. 154 addresses the responsibilities for explaining the sentence set out in Clause 251. This is by way of a probing amendment to see what the rationale is for the Secretary of State having the power to override a sensible set of rules. It is difficult to think under what circumstances such an order would need to be made, any my amendment seeks to find out why the Ministry of Defence thinks it necessary to have this power. I beg to move.

Lord Garden: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. He described what the Defence Council, on the rare occasions when it meets, will do under Clause 106 as being purely administrative. I suggest that, to the recipient of the drug test, the number of samples that one is required to provide may not seem totally administrative. The circumstances in which one has to give them, the equipment that is used, the qualifications and training of the people who take the samples are quite substantive issues. Given that the major area of the sampling is reserved for the Secretary of State, and that the Defence Council probably does not sit around the table that often to decide on the qualifications of those taking samples, I see no great strength in the view that these two areas of sampling should be separated. Although I shall not press the matter today, we could perhaps discuss it before coming Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Drayson: This is a key element of the Bill. Before speaking to government amendments, I shall respond to Amendment No. 164. It is important to point out to the noble and gallant Lord that his amendment would prevent the Secretary of State excluding certain matters from the service complaints process. However, there are a number of situations in which a specialised procedure suited to deal with particular areas of complaint already exists.
	We need to prevent the redress system becoming overburdened by cases for which an alternative procedure is better, but we recognise the sensitivity of the power, as the noble and gallant Lord highlighted, and have accepted the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House that the powers should be exercisable only subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. We are tabling an amendment to Clause 366 to provide for this.
	Clause 332 already allows time limits to be laid down for bringing complaints. Government Amendment No. 164A allows regulations to be made setting out time limits for a matter to be referred to a higher level—a superior officer or the Defence Council. The aim is to reduce delays caused by the current absence of time limits on applying to take a complaint to the next level.
	Government Amendments Nos. 169A, 169B, 186B and 201ZB introduce the service complaints commissioner. Noble Lords will remember that on 13 June the Government published their response to the report of the Deepcut review by Nicholas Blake QC and that a Statement on our intention to introduce a service complaints commissioner was made in another place. In the light of the tragic events at Deepcut, the Government recognised that there were three key needs. First, there should be an independent element in the investigation and decision of complaints in cases of bullying and other misconduct. Secondly, there must be a way for people to ensure that allegations of such misconduct can be brought to the attention of the redress system and the victim given an opportunity to complain. Thirdly, there should be independent oversight of the performance of the system as a whole, with direct reports to Parliament and direct access to Ministers. The first need will be met by the inclusion in such cases of an independent member of the service complaints panel. The second need will be met by providing access to the system to outsiders to ensure that a complaint can be brought and that independent review is possible.
	Government Amendments Nos. 169A, 169B and 186B provide the commissioner with the power to refer allegations of certain types of wrongdoing against members of the services to an officer, usually the commanding officer of the alleged victim. That officer will have a duty to inform the alleged victim about the allegation and find out whether he wants to make a complaint about the alleged wrong. The officer will also ensure that the alleged victim knows about how to make a service complaint and about any time limits under the legislation. Anyone may make allegations to the commissioner—a friend of the alleged victim, for example, or member of the same family.
	Secondary legislation will define the types of allegation to which these provisions will apply, so that they cover those related to discrimination, bullying, harassment or other forms of misconduct. Secondary legislation will also provide for the commissioner to be informed about the progress and outcome of referred complaints. We are introducing an amendment to Clause 366 to provide for these regulations to be subject to affirmative procedure, and I shall refer to this again when we deal with the amendment.
	To meet the third need, the commissioner will have a statutory role of reviewing the fairness and effectiveness of the service complaints system. He or she will have direct access to Ministers. The amendments will also require the commissioner to provide the Secretary of State with an annual report on the system to be laid before Parliament.
	Amendments Nos. 170 and 189 also propose the introduction of a service complaints commissioner. Some of the noble Lords' proposals coincide with those of the Government. However, Amendment No. 189—

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I very much welcome the debate introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and I thank him for that. I also thank him for the 50 Moldovan lei that he leant me last week to buy a drink on a parliamentary visit to Moldova. Unfortunately, I did not have any euros with me so I had to borrow some from him, but I will repay that debt with five euro after the debate.
	It is a timely debate. The euro-zone is prospering, and I note with interest that the recent oil price hike did not disrupt the euro, as has often been predicted by those who are opposed to it. I am not ecstatic about it now, as I was not despondent when the growth rate was flat, because the essential point of the euro is to service the single market. Prosperity comes from other reforms; labour market reforms, financial and product market reforms and of course the completion of the single market. On that point, the easy way to present the single currency to the British people is to remind them that the four countries making up the United Kingdom already operate as a single currency. Mind you, two countries of our Union are not able to use their notes here in England; but never mind.
	Everyone agrees with a single currency operating a single market; the question is which one. The euro has been an outstanding success in its creation, its launch and the progress despite the gainsayers such as the former Prime Minister John Major, who likened those who advocated the euro to those dancing a rain dance in terms of the hope they had of success. Recently in the Daily Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said gaily:
	"The disintegration of the euro may well be drawing nearer".
	The fact is that it is secure and it will be secure for the future.
	Nevertheless, there are issues about the future and the governance of the euro which need to draw our attention. I very much support Trichet as the ECB governor, and he must be supported in defending the independence of the ECB as opposed to some political moves by Juncker and others to interfere with that independence. Nevertheless, Monsieur Trichet should be reminded—as his predecessor Duisenberg possibly was not—that part of the statute of the euro was that once price inflation had been conquered and sustained there was ability to do something about the exchange rate to stimulate job creation.
	I possibly share the concern of others that the Commission used unaccountable inflexibility recently to bar Lithuania, which in every other respect has fulfilled the criteria to join, simply on the count that the inflation rate was 0.07 per cent above the requirement. Britain is outside the euro, but potential problems are being veiled by the outstanding success of Gordon Brown at the Treasury. Nevertheless, there are causes for concern. Take the yo-yoing pound against the dollar; $1.40 some months ago and now $1.85, but it could well be on the climb to $2 to the pound. That may be very good for British tourists going to New York to do their Christmas shopping, but it is not healthy for British manufacturing; neither the rate nor the uncertainty that is introduced by not being part and parcel of a bigger single currency area such as the euro. The pound sterling now lies uncomfortably on the fault line of the moving tectonic plates of the dollar and the euro. To avoid earthquakes and floods in the future, we need to be inside the euro. Gordon Brown's success means that currently the euro is off the political agenda, which I regret. I am worried about this phoney war, and I am worried that all is too quiet on the western front for Britain bordering the euro-zone.
	I conclude with a series of questions for my noble friend. First, we are not inside the euro-zone, but we have to adhere to the broad economic guidelines. Will my noble friend report how successfully we are doing that, and perhaps incorporate an update of the situation with respect to our budget and debt criteria? Secondly, when will the next assessment be made by the Treasury of the five economic tests? Has the Treasury undertaken any kind of assessment of the cost of the United Kingdom remaining outside the euro? That work should be done profitably. Has there been an update of the 2003 national changeover plan? When you think of the changes that have happened in the way that the euro has established itself, it surely must be the case that there will have been changes to be reflected in that changeover plan that take account of what has happened in the interim.
	I shall consider some other sectors. What about local authorities, for instance? I understand that on 21 September there was meant to be a meeting of the people who are managing the preparation plan and local authorities. Did that meeting take place? What was the result? I would be interested to know what was discussed. They will play a crucial role if the euro comes into play here in the United Kingdom. Why is there no separate budget for the Euro Preparation Unit under the Treasury budget as a whole? Is it not important? Why have its personnel been cut year on year from 17 full time equivalents in 2002, whittled down to nine? I regard that as unfortunate.
	Have the 18 EMU studies been updated, developed and expanded? Why are there no analyses of certain sectoral areas? For instance, I have in mind the small business sector. Have we considered its worries and concerns, or those of the tourism industry? I do not just mean by that preparation for joining the euro. What has been the good or bad effect of staying outside the euro-zone? Apropos of that last question, does my noble friend agree that Britain's banks are failing British business with the lack of a competitive euro banking service? That is alluded to in the euro preparation Managed Transition Plan under information on existing retail banking services.
	I conclude with one example of where one business, namely Cash Bases Group Ltd, of Newhaven in East Sussex, employing some 230 people, is successfully negotiating being outside the euro. It seems to me from what it reports that it has difficulties to overcome, which would not be the case of a business in the euro-zone. I quote:
	"With our capability to price and invoice in euro now well established, we are using our considerable euro income stream to buy raw materials in France. This matching operation between sales and purchases allows us to 'hedge' the exchange differentials".
	Good luck to it if it is able to do that; not everyone is able to do that. Here is an advantage:
	"We have also used the euro to service the mortgage on part of our company's base here in Sussex and we plan to take out further loans in the currency. This move is to take advantage of currently lower mortgage rates in euro compared with those quoted in sterling".
	It is my strong desire that the Government conduct a campaign to explain the advantages of being in the euro. It is good that British business is accommodating itself, but nevertheless it faces problems that incapacitate it in driving itself forward within the single market.
	The time is coming soon that when Europe as well as America sneeze, Britain catches a cold.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for the European project is well known in your Lordships' House and he has not disappointed us this afternoon. It will not surprise him that I find it difficult to agree with anything that he said, and in that I feel somewhat alone among those who have chosen to speak in this debate.
	The noble Lord's Question refers to the euro-zone economy, but of course there is no such thing. Adding together the economies of the 12 countries that have committed themselves to economic and monetary union does not make them one economy. It is just possible that if the 12 countries had exhibited genuine and sustainable economic convergence prior to the creation of economic and monetary union, we could now be looking at something that resembled a single euro-zone economy. But the truth was that the politics of the euro were stronger than the economic facts, and so various wheezes and fibs allowed economic and monetary union to proceed on the basis of economies that were, in fact, very dissimilar.
	We have seen the truth of divergence in the different economic performances post-economic and monetary union, with Ireland at one end of the growth scale and Germany at the other. That has been the case not just in terms of growth; it will also be found in workforce statistics and in income per person.
	The truth is that there is not one euro-zone but 12 economies moving in different ways. That is not just a comment on the smaller countries within the euro-zone; it is true of the core countries of France and Germany. For example, in the past few years, one has done startlingly well at increasing its exports in goods and the other has fallen back. One has a growing trade surplus and the other a growing trade deficit. That helps to explain why Germany has recently turned its economic performance around more than France.
	This divergent performance throughout the euro-zone has, in turn, illustrated the fallacy of a one-size-fits-all instrument of economic policy—namely, the single interest rate tuned to a euro-zone-wide measure of inflation. That interest rate policy has, until recently, held rates at levels designed to suit the sluggish German economy. But of course the real impact has been an inflationary boom in other economies, such as those of Ireland and Spain, on the back of negative real interest rates. The overall statistics for the euro-zone never tell the truth for any individual country within it.
	For several years, euro-zone growth has lagged behind that of the UK, the US and practically anywhere else you care to mention. There has been some good news on euro-zone economic performance this year, largely on the back of an apparent recovery in Germany. But a number of factors—for example, the World Cup effect and the imminent changes in VAT in Germany—have flattered those statistics in Germany. Yesterday, we had the news that business confidence in Germany had slumped dramatically. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said that it was a 15-year high, but I suspect that he did not read yesterday's news, which showed that it was again in serious decline. Indeed, yesterday's view from the European Commission was of lower, perhaps even zero, growth in the first quarter of next year. That rings true. A potential world economic slowdown on the back of high oil prices and a slowing US housing market, as the IMF has warned, will not bypass the euro-zone.
	The relative lack of success of the euro-zone is not a Eurosceptic narrative. No less than the Conseil d'Analyse Economique, firmly rooted in the French Government, concluded in a recent report:
	"Economic integration has stagnated and no longer promotes growth. The Euro's creation has not produced the knock on benefits expected. The Eurozone area's macroeconomic framework has become obsolete".
	The only thing that is extraordinary about that quotation is that it is predicated on a belief that economic integration has, at some stage, in some way promoted economic growth, and I do not believe that there is a jot of evidence to support that proposition. The extraordinary thing about the report overall is that the solution to this failure is more economic integration, but of course there never has been any accounting for the French.
	The plain facts remain that some of the euro-zone economies have avoided deep and meaningful reform, especially in their labour markets. We have to single out Germany, France and Italy as the principal culprits. French labour laws are Byzantine by any standards and they probably vie with Germany in their cost. The World Bank, for example, has estimated that in Germany it costs an average of 67 weeks' pay to get rid of each worker. That does not promote flexibility in the economy.
	Once upon a time, the failure of the single currency and the consequent implosion of the euro-zone was the prediction of only some Eurosceptics. For those, it was just one more reason why the UK should keep well clear of economic and monetary union. If the euro-zone fails to hold together, that will be messy and costly, not just for the countries concerned but also for countries that have significant trade balances with the euro-zone. That, of course, includes the UK, although we are not, by some margin, the country most affected. That is why the failure of economic and monetary union was not something that any UK citizen, Eurosceptic or not, could rejoice in predicting.
	But those Eurosceptics have recently been joined by the distinctly pro-euro think tank, the Centre for European Reform. This think tank has concluded that the single currency now risks becoming a,
	"source of economic dislocation and political division".
	Italy may well be the closest to the edge in triggering a crisis but it is not alone, with Portugal, Greece and Spain joining it in the possible departure lounge.
	I have a number of questions that I hope the Minister will deal with when he responds. First, does he agree that the countries within the euro-zone have not, overall, prospered from their membership? Economic performance within the euro-zone has been disappointing, with the one-size-fits-all policies harming rather than helping those economies. Secondly, and following on from that, does the Minister agree that the Chancellor's determination to keep the UK out of economic and monetary union has been a wise and sensible stance from the perspective of the UK economy?
	Thirdly, and more importantly, will the Minister update the House on the Chancellor's current thinking on the UK and economic and monetary union? The likely move of the Chancellor to No. 10 at some stage when the Prime Minister finds it convenient makes this is especially important. The Chancellor has strong Eurosceptic credentials and many of us hope that, if he is allowed to move to No. 10, he will take those credentials with him.
	Fourthly, will the Minister remind the House when the next assessment of UK membership will be made and will he outline the terms of that assessment? The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, also asked that question. The timing of that assessment against the background of the Labour Party's succession struggles makes this an important issue. The way in which the assessment is carried out is also important. The right result was achieved last time but I am sure that I am not alone in thinking that an assessment carried out behind the closed doors of the Treasury is not a transparent and respectable way to conduct major government business. Will the assessment next time be a more open process?
	Lastly, and even more importantly, will the Minister confirm that there will be no question of the UK joining the euro without a referendum, with the UK approving that move? Economic and monetary union has not been a success for the economies that are locked into it. Serious cracks are now appearing and, while we may well struggle on without an implosion, it is not a system that a successful economy, which I believe our economy broadly is, should want to join. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government continue to believe that the British people will be the best judge of that if the question ever arises again in earnest.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, this has been an interesting and useful debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for initiating it, and all noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. There has been a spread of views—not an identity of view—on this issue, which is not surprising.
	At the heart of our debate must be the assessment that despite Europe's and the euro area's current cyclical recovery, structural problems persist. Europe's low growth in the past five years—2001-2005—coupled with a persistent lack of resilience highlight continuing structural policy weaknesses. To be fair, that is a different picture from that painted by the noble Lords, Lord Dykes and Lord Newby and, to a certain extent, my noble friend Lord Harrison. If anything, the current recovery must be seen as a rare window of opportunity for Europe and the euro-zone to exploit the upswing and commit to making Europe a dynamic and knowledge-based economy capable of sustainable economic growth and creating employment.
	The right policy response—to which several noble Lords referred—is therefore the continued pursuit of structural reform to raise labour participation, boost productivity and increase flexibility in labour, product and capital markets. Economic and monetary union puts a premium on structural economic flexibility, as to be successful in monetary union countries need additional flexibility to adjust to change and to unexpected economic events.
	Alongside EMU, the challenges of globalisation and demographic change place additional emphasis on the importance of rising to the reform challenge. We are part of a rapidly changing global economy that brings significant economic challenges in terms of a changing balance of economic activity, increasing global integration and intensifying global competition. Declining birth rates and rising life expectancies are interacting to produce a dramatic change in the size and age structure of Europe's population. If unaddressed this will markedly increase the dependency ratio in countries, with serious negative implications for trend growth and pronounced increases in public spending. To address this challenge Europe needs to review its pension, long-term care and health systems and aim to raise labour utilisation underpinned by an adequate and transparent macro-economic framework as well as sound public finances.
	To improve its economic performance relative to the US and consistently match the recent growth rates of other successful developed economies, Europe must take urgent action to promote employment and boost productivity. The Lisbon programme of economic reform has recently been refocused by EU leaders on promoting growth and employment. They are the areas in which Europe most needs to succeed in order to compete in a global economy that puts a premium on skills, innovation and flexibility.
	With regard to Europe's current economic performance, which was the subject of a number of contributions, although it is currently undergoing a cyclical recovery and the majority of member states are performing relatively well, with strong out-turns, particularly in the first half of this year, Europe still needs to make up much ground in comparison with key developed economies, while unemployment remains relatively high and persistent. As the noble Baroness said, we cannot look at this in total; we have to unpick and see what is happening in individual countries.
	The current recovery is still not sustainably entrenched, with greater uncertainty beyond 2006, while the recent economic stagnation highlights remaining structural problems. On the issue of growth, since 1996 annual average growth in GDP in the euro area has averaged about 1.2 per cent less than in the US. Indeed, in 2005, real GDP growth in the euro area was less than half that in the US.
	Stronger growth in non-euro area countries, such as Sweden, the UK and also the new member states, boosted growth for the EU25 as a whole to about 1.75 per cent in 2005, compared to 3.25 per cent in the US. Europe's growth rate still lags behind those of its main competitors. As a result, the gap in living standards between the US and the EU15 has widened back above 30 per cent.
	Analysis suggests that Europe's labour market performance explains about two-thirds of Europe's gap in living standards with the US; the remaining third can be attributed to Europe's lower productivity levels. Despite recent efforts to boost employment and marked success in some member states, particularly in raising female employment, inactivity rates remain high, with more than 90 million inactive people of working age across the EU25.
	The employment rate of older workers remains especially low and well below that of major competitors like the USA and Japan. Moreover, at around 8 per cent, Europe's unemployment rate is considerably higher than that in the US and Japan—and the UK—leaving 17.5 million people unemployed.
	Raising productivity levels will also be crucial for Europe to improve its long-term economic performance and living standards. The euro-zone underperforms against the US in terms of both output per hour and output per worker, and the gap has been widening since the mid-1990s, reversing the trend of catch-up with US productivity levels during the three decades following the war.
	Recent analysis suggests that the underlying causes are largely structural, reflecting in particular a failure to boost services productivity. The relatively small size of the EU's "knowledge services" and ICT-producing as well as high-productivity ICT-using manufacturing sectors particularly present challenges. This points to a clear need for further action to promote the key drivers of productivity, increasing product market competition, enhancing the EU's frameworks for innovation and enterprise, and upgrading the skills of both existing workers and new entrants to the labour market so that they can exploit the opportunities of new technology.
	The advent of EMU is itself a driver for pursuing structural reform and enhancing economic flexibility, especially in the euro area. To be successful in monetary union, countries need even more flexibility to adjust to change and to unexpected economic events once the ability of countries to vary their interest rates and exchange rates has gone and the euro and the single European interest rate are in place. EMU membership therefore puts an additional premium on ongoing reform of EU labour, product and capital markets.
	In this context, the Government continue to argue that employability, flexibility and stronger competition policies must be a top priority, so that EMU can be a sustained success. Enhancing the flexibility and dynamism of the European economy and building on the achievements to date are important if the full benefits of EMU are to be realised. This is particularly important as EMU expands to take in the new members that joined the EU in 2004.
	Several questions were posed and I shall try to deal with them all. Perhaps I may start by reaffirming the Government's policy. The Government's policy on membership of the single currency is unchanged. It remains as set out in the Chancellor's Statement in the House of Commons on October 1997, and again in the Chancellor's Statement on the five tests assessment in June 2003. The Chancellor announced in Budget 2006 that the Government do not propose a euro assessment to be initiated at the time of this Budget and the Treasury will again review the situation at Budget time next year, as required by the Chancellor's 2003 Statement.
	In principle, we are in favour of UK membership of EMU, but in practice the economic conditions must be right. A decision on the membership of the single currency will be based on whether it is in the national interest to join and whether the case is clear and unambiguous. Overall, the Treasury assessment is that since 1997 the UK has made real progress towards meeting the five-year economic test, but on balance until the potential benefits of increased investment trade, a boost to financial services, growth and jobs are clear, which addresses the point made by my noble friend Lord Harrison, we cannot at this point conclude that there is sustainable and durable convergence, or sufficient flexibility to cope with any potential difficulties within the euro area. Despite the risks and costs, which clearly exist, of delaying the benefits of joining, a clear and unambiguous case for UK membership of EMU has not yet been made and a decision to join now would not be in the national economic interest.
	My noble friend Lord Harrison asked about the EPU. It maintains a network of experts with stakeholders as part of the regular programme of activities on EU preparations. The meeting with local authorities took place on 21 September and discussed European preparation issues of relevance to local authorities. There was a question about the separate budget for the Euro Preparations Unit. The costs of the euro preparations in the Treasury are met from within Treasury department expenditure limits.
	An update on the national changeover plan was asked for. The third outlying national changeover plan was published in June 2003 and sets out the possible timetable for changeover, its management and the impact on consumers, business, financial services, and the voluntary and public sectors. Since then, the EPU has worked with stakeholders from across the economy to develop a suite of supporting planning documents, including a draft management transition plan and a draft consumer protection framework. Details of these can be found on the website.
	On banks, the UK is committed to encouraging competition in both the UK and EU markets. EU competition authorities are currently looking at the state of competition in retail banking markets, and will be reporting shortly.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, posed some questions about the Government's position on the euro, and I think I have set that out. She referred to the Chancellor continuing to be wise, and I can confirm that I am sure he will. I have dealt with when the next assessment is due. No assessment has been made in relation to the last Budget, and the matter will be reviewed at the next. The position on the referendum remains unchanged: we would not go into the euro without one.
	The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, raised issues about public finances. UK public finances are fully consistent with a prudent interpretation of the stability and growth pact, which takes into account the economic cycle, long-term sustainability of public finances and the role of public investment. Both the Treasury and Commission projections show that the UK deficit will reach the reference value of 3 per cent in 2006-07, and fall thereafter.
	I am reminded that time is up, so I shall briefly summarise. Although Europe is currently bouncing back, enjoying a cyclical recovery and, encouragingly, some of the major European economies are seen to be turning a corner, many problems remain. Europe continues to lose ground in comparison with key developed economies. Structural problems persist. Unemployment remains high, particularly long-term and youth unemployment, while productivity and innovation is low. Europe's recent growth record and its marked lack of resilience to shocks are worrying. The underlying factors contributing to Europe's slow growth and economic performance stem from structural policy weaknesses. The right policy response is therefore the pursuit of structural reform to promote employment, raise productivity and increase flexibility in labour, product and capital markets.

Lord Drayson: Amendments Nos. 165 to 169 require an independent member on all redress panels and allow the Secretary of State to require more than one in prescribed cases.
	Our starting point is that, at the heart of the relationship between service personnel and the chain of command, is that the chain of command is responsible for investigating wrongs and remedying them. In some cases, the balance moves in favour of an independent element, particularly where the need for transparency is paramount or where outside expertise is beneficial. We have already identified the key areas where an independent element is needed: where a complainant alleges unlawful discrimination or harassment, bullying, which can amount to harassment in some instances, or a wrong done involving bias or other improper behaviour. We do not intend to limit the cases to these. There will certainly be other cases in which expertise or independence calls for an independent element. Moreover, we propose to ensure independent oversight of the working of the system by the appointment of a statutory service complaints commissioner, who will report directly to the Secretary of State.
	We think that in this way we shall achieve the right balance between, on the one hand, independence and outside areas of expertise and, on the other hand, the need for the services to respond to complaints and for complaints to be considered with an understanding of the service context. I hope that, on the strength of my response to the proposals, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: Amendment No. 172, tabled in my name, is grouped with Amendment No. 171, although it deals with an entirely different subject. It deals with an issue raised by Nicholas Blake QC in the Deepcut review. Recommendation No. 30 of that review was that there should always be an inquest or, in Scotland, a fatal accident inquiry, into the sudden death of a soldier, wherever the death occurs, and my amendment reflects that recommendation. However, the Minister wrote to my noble friend Lord Garden on 9 October and pointed out that work is being done on that recommendation, that it has not yet reached fruition, and that it should be more properly considered under the Coroner's Bill that is to be brought before Parliament. If I can have an assurance to that effect this afternoon, I do not think it will be necessary for me to pursue my amendment further.

Lord Drayson: I have listened carefully to noble Lords and I recognise absolutely the deep importance of recording casualty figures.
	Our argument that Amendment No. 171 is unnecessary and inappropriate for primary legislation is based on our belief that we are collecting and communicating the data on the casualty figures appropriately. Nevertheless, I understand the concern raised this afternoon. I will provide the Committee with further information on initiatives being undertaken in the department. For example, we will be introducing a defence medical information capability programme to strengthen the processes in this area. Given that I make that commitment this afternoon, I ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.
	The noble Earl asked about the answer I gave during Starred Questions. Our data shows that, on any given day throughout the year, in the United Kingdom the Ministry of Defence has on average fewer than 50 inpatients in any type of care facility. If the noble Lord wishes me to give further information on that, I would be happy to do so.
	The noble Viscount, Lord Slim, makes a strong point about the potential for confusion in describing those who are wounded and those who are injured. That is a very important point. In some of the debates I have seen in the media about this there has been confusion. The Ministry of Defence needs to do everything it can to make it absolutely clear where people have been killed in action, where they have been wounded and to differentiate between those who may have been injured for another reason.
	On Amendment No. 172, I am happy to give the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, the assurance he seeks. I ask him, on that basis, not to press the amendment.

Lord Drayson: I absolutely accept the importance of the matter. As noble Lords have described, it is a matter of whether the issue is best addressed by legislation or by focusing on policy and implementation—the actions that the Ministry of Defence takes in support of our reservists. If I may say so, it is important for us to recognise the importance and central role that our reservists play in the Armed Forces. We have changed our policy to make reservists an integrated part of our fighting effort—for example, with the Territorial Army—as part of the one Army concept. Some noble Lords may have seen the advertising on the television to reflect that.
	We recognise that there is an issue here, but we should not regard it out of proportion, if I may say so. To give some numbers, since 2003, 14,500 reservists have been called out to support operations. Of those called out, 28 reservists have applied to have their cases brought before a reinstatement committee. Fourteen cases were withdrawn, six were settled before hearing, five were won by the applicant and three by the employer. Those are small numbers but are nevertheless very important. From my experience both latterly in the Ministry of Defence and previously in industry, I recognise the responsibility that we in the Ministry of Defence have to communicate very clearly to industry and employers what are their responsibilities. I take on board the points that have been made asking whether the Ministry of Defence is doing enough.
	With regard to the specific case raised by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, concerning Sergeant Knight, if he would care to write to me, I shall look into the matter and take it up with my ministerial colleagues.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garden, that this is about implementation, not legislation.
	I ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment after hearing what I have said.

Earl Attlee: I have to agree with the analysis of my amendment given by the noble Lord, Lord Garden. If there were 28 reinstatement committees, why were they not invariably attended by an officer to support the serviceman? It is always a pleasure to receive faint praise from my noble friend Lord Glenarthur. It is a shame that I cannot ask him questions about volunteer reserve recruitment, especially officer recruiting.
	I agree that further legislation may well be counterproductive, but the issue is to use the legislation that we have in place and to ensure that we provide heavy support for those few cases—we are only talking about 28 cases that ended up in the reinstatement committee. We must be right behind those volunteer reservists if they have to resort to the reinstatement committee. I am disappointed by what we have done in the past and I hope that we can do better in future. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Drayson: moved Amendments Nos. 174 to 177:
	Page 236, line 7, leave out "Court Martial's" and insert "court's"
	Page 236, line 12, leave out "Court Martial's" and insert "court's"
	Page 236, line 40, leave out "Court Martial's" and insert "court's"
	Page 237, line 1, leave out "Court Martial's" and insert "court's"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Schedule 13, as amended, agreed to.
	Clauses 353 and 354 agreed to.

Lord Drayson: As I reported to the House on 14 June during Second Reading, the Secretary of State decided to re-examine the issue of pardons for World War 1 soldiers. The outcome of that review was subsequently announced by the Government on 16 August, when we said that we intended to seek parliamentary approval for a statutory form of pardon for servicemen executed for a range of disciplinary offences during the First World War. The purpose of the amendment is to provide for that.
	The Government are very much aware of the considerable feeling in this country and abroad for the British and Commonwealth servicemen who were executed in the tragic and horrific circumstances of the First World War. A great deal of consideration has been given over the years to the best way in which to address that issue. Pardons under the Royal prerogative were considered as part of the review of the subject initiated in 1997 by Dr John Reid, then Armed Forces Minister. The review concluded that few, if any, of the cases would succeed if the standard test for prerogative pardons was applied. An important factor leading to that conclusion was the sparseness and unevenness of the surviving evidence across the group of cases.
	Noble Lords expressed their strong concerns about the matter most clearly to me when we debated it in this House on 9 January. As I undertook to do at the time, I reflected those concerns to my right honourable friend the then Secretary of State for Defence. Having reviewed the situation again, we believe that we should now act to remove the dishonour that still taints the memory of those servicemen who suffered execution and is still felt all too heavily by their families today. It is time to recognise that execution was not a fate that they deserved but one that resulted from the form of discipline believed to be necessary at the time for the prosecution of the war. We believe that this can be achieved by the clause.
	In speaking to the amendment, I stress that the Government do not intend to call into question the actions of officers who were responsible for discipline. The commanders at that time were themselves faced with extremely difficult and unpleasant duties that none of us would envy. The clause does not stand as a judgment of the way in which they did their duty. The amendment avoids the difficulties that would be posed by assessing individual cases. It does not seek to rewrite history by quashing convictions or sentences. Its aim is to lift the stigma that has been attached to these executions for so long, affecting the lives of the servicemen's families for many decades. This will be the moral effect of the measure if passed by Parliament.
	The amendment provides that all servicemen executed for certain offences, such as desertion and cowardice, committed between 4 August 1914 and 11 November 1918 shall be taken to be pardoned. The names of those affected are not listed in the clause because our records are insufficiently comprehensive to be able to do this. However, if the amendment is passed, we plan to place a formal record of the pardon alongside the relevant court-martial files, where we hold them. This will be visible to anyone viewing those files in the future, and it will be an important measure in helping to restore the memory of these men.
	I understand the concerns of the House that we announced our decision to seek a statutory pardon during the recess, but I assure noble Lords that we made the announcement at the earliest possible opportunity following our review of policy so that we could commence the necessary consultation and drafting for an amendment to be included in the Bill. I am sure noble Lords will agree that, having reached a decision, and given the age of some of those campaigning for pardons, the Government should not have delayed on this matter until another opportunity arose in the legislative timetable. For the same reason, we also intend the amendment to take effect on Royal Assent.
	The subject of pardons is emotive, and the public feel very strongly about it. There is also considerable interest in the matter in the House. It seems appropriate, in this year that saw the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, which claimed so many victims, that we should take this opportunity to recognise other victims of the First World War. On a particularly poignant note, the 90th anniversary of the execution of Private Harry Farr falls on 18 October, less than a week from now. I have read Private Farr's file, and anyone who has done so cannot fail to be moved by it. I am glad that we have had an opportunity to revisit this matter and to find a solution.
	Private Farr's family have been at the forefront of the campaign for pardons, and I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the important role that they have played. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Dubs for his interest in and support for this cause, and I hope that we will be able to have his support for our amendment. It is also right that I use this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, who supports the amendment. I trust that all noble Lords will be able to support this important amendment, which I believe will bring closure to all families who have had to live with the stigma of these executions since the First World War. Noble Lords will be aware from an open letter from some of those families that they welcome this move to restore their men's reputations. I beg to move.

Lord Dubs: I very much welcome the government amendment and what my noble friend has said. I am grateful to him for the part that he has played in this, and to the Secretary of State, with whom I had several conversations in the summer about the amendment. I also pay tribute to the campaigners, who have worked very hard to achieve this end, and to my honourable friend Andrew Mackinlay in the other place, who has worked for longer than I have to seek the pardons that we now have the power to effect.
	The facts are well understood and I do not want to take any more time of the Committee, except to say that we are talking about young men, many of whom fought bravely for this country and some of whom were underage and lied to be allowed to join our forces. Sometimes the courts martial were very brief, and often in the heat of the fighting in the trenches there was no possibility of a defence or witnesses. The families were left with an understandable sense of injustice that men, some of whom we would describe as traumatised and shell-shocked—I do not speak medically—were then executed. For many years, the families have had a sense of grievance that people who fought for this country should have been stigmatised and punished in this way.
	We know that documentation and records do not exist for all the cases, so it is right that the pardon should extend to all of them. To pick out individuals on the basis of sometimes poor documentation would have been an invidious process and would not have given people the sense of closure which this all-embracing amendment does. Like my noble friend, I do not want to criticise the officers who were members of the courts martial that led to these results. None of us in the calm of today can understand what was going on in the trenches, although some of us might understand from books. The officers in the courts martial were doing what they saw was their duty on the basis of the mood, understanding and attitudes of the time, so I do not want pardons for one lot of people to be seen as somehow vilifying others. If there is to be closure, it must be for all concerned, so all the families of the victims as well as of the officers in the courts martial can have the sense that we have now brought this matter to what I hope will be a conclusion—I will not call it happy—that ends the stigma under which the families of these men have suffered. I warmly support what the Government have done.

Lord Luke: We all sympathise with the descendants of the soldiers who were executed during the First World War for various disciplinary offences. However, there are certain considerations which, as an historian, I believe should be taken into account. I also want to ask the Minister some questions, to which I shall come in due course. In his letter to me of 27 September, the Minister wrote:
	"The amendment will not overturn the original convictions, but it will provide that the persons executed are taken to be pardoned so that the dishonour and stigma are removed".
	Surely it is the offence which dishonours someone and confers stigma, not the sentence for that offence.
	Of the 3,000-odd offences where the sentence of death was passed, no fewer than 2,700 were commuted. Many of those soldiers served considerable terms of imprisonment instead. They are not included, apparently, in this pardon. Surely it is completely illogical to pardon those soldiers who committed the most serious offences, which the relevant authority refused to commute, and at the same time not pardon the offences which were obviously considered to be less heinous, thus leading to those sentences being commuted. What about the descendants of the 2,700? Indeed, what about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died with their faces to the enemy and their descendants?
	If this amendment is passed, does it confer a legal pardon for the offences of the executed 300? From the perspective of military discipline, surely it must be wrong to go back and impose modern values and sensitivities on a proper system which was operative 90 years ago; that is, between three and four generations ago. Does that not set a precedent that could come back and haunt us?
	I notice that the question of compensation is not dealt with in the amendment. Is the Minister quite sure that this does not lay the Government open to claims for compensation at a later stage? Only 1 per cent of those tried for a capital military offence in World War I were subsequently executed, and as few as 10 per cent of those sentenced to death were actually executed. As the Minister has mentioned, in 1998, Dr Reid conducted deep research into a third of the cases we are considering today. He concluded that there should be no blanket pardon because it was impossible to distinguish those who had deliberately let down their country and comrades from those who were not guilty of desertion or cowardice. What has happened with regard to evidence since 1998? Surely, in considering whether a group of people should be pardoned, there ought to be sufficient evidence in each case. As has been admitted, that is most clearly lacking here.
	There is a myth that these executions were indiscriminately carried out pour encourager les autres. The facts, as far as we know them, rather suggest that great consideration was given to whether sentences of execution should be commuted. The fact that nine-tenths of those sentenced to death escaped with lesser sentences also suggests that compassion was shown where appropriate and as often as possible.
	I fear that this is a political gesture to help people to feel more comfortable about the past. In 1916—or 1914 or 1918—different customs, different standards and different morals were the norm. The principle of rewriting history must be totally wrong. As Wordsworth wrote some 150 to 200 years ago,
	"For old, unhappy far-off things,
	And battles long ago".

Lord Astor of Hever: I declare an interest in these two amendments in that my grandfather was the commander-in-chief of the day who had the difficult task of making the final decisions in these cases. I very much welcome the Minister's confirmation that this pardon will not cast any doubt on those who took those very difficult decisions. The means of maintaining discipline was prescribed in the Army Act, renewed every year by Parliament, which determined what actions by troops under command were criminal offences and the appropriate punishments for those crimes. Discipline as exercised by the British Army in the First World War was considered at the time to be fair. That was recognised by all ranks and was effective. The British Army was the only one of the main participants in the war not to experience major mutinies. An essential element in deterring widespread desertion was—unlike the French—the very sparing use of the death penalty. My grandfather refused to confirm 90 per cent of the death sentences that came up in front of him. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, with shellshock very much in mind, he took explicit medical advice on each case.
	Where will the proposed pardon leave this 90 per cent? It is around 2,700 soldiers. What about those found guilty of the same offence who were not shot but reprieved and spent a good deal of time in prison? A pardon would leave some soldiers who were rightly convicted pardoned while others who may well have been wrongly convicted are not pardoned. Within the 360 executions for military offences are some very guilty men who, from the evidence, did intend to commit the offence and were responsible for their actions. Furthermore, some were either multiple offenders or had used deception to evade arrest, and it is quite wrong to grant pardons to those who were guilty of outright cowardice. They declined to risk their lives when others did. What message would this pardon send about the kind of standards we would like our soldiers to abide by today?
	We have to accept that past societies did things differently, even if we morally disagree with particular actions today. Otherwise, as my noble friend said, history will be endlessly rewritten by governments of different political stripes. This is a controversial issue that deserves to be treated with careful sensitivity, and we cannot withhold our sympathies from the descendants and relatives of those who were executed. Wherever possible, relevant individual cases should be reviewed and a pardon considered. But I cannot support a blanket pardon.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: Perhaps I may speak in support of the amendment, as my name is on it. I put my name on it because I received a letter and the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. Let us face it: none of us was there, and none of us really knows what went on. But my father was there. When I was a child he told me what went on, and as soon as I saw the letter, it all came back, because children store away things in the mind that occasionally return.
	I am not a historian and I do not read much history, but I remember very well the essence of the circumstances. In the light of that, this amendment is a totally fair and proper arrangement for the servicemen and their families who, let us face it, were always the prime concern of the Field Marshall. It affords no form of criticism of the Field Marshall, although it has been used by so-called historians, none of whom was there. We should all, as a nation, be grateful to this day for what the Field Marshall did.
	In essence, the circumstances as I was told them were that morale was cracking, discipline was on the line, and it was a scene of daily attack. The French had started to desert. But for the intervention and, as my father put it, the compassionate dealings of the Earl Marshall, discipline would not have been restored. It was also put to me that the Earl Marshall was greatly admired by the men for having done that and, as I say, is totally unworthy of the criticisms of so-called historians or of a technical analysis based on material from so long ago that it cannot be checked or verified. In these circumstances, the amendment affords the benefit of addressing a mistake or mistakes which inevitably were made. In a way, mistakes have ever been the collateral damage of warfare, and still are. This gives credence to what is owed to the families without in any way questioning the convictions—which you cannot do en masse—or in any way criticising the Field Marshall. I support the amendment.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I am very grateful for the outstandingly sensitive speeches that we have heard already in this short debate. With great deference to my noble friend Lord Luke, I cannot agree with his suggestion that it is only the offence that brings dishonour. To be shot at dawn before your comrades is to experience the very pinnacle—or perhaps the very nadir—of humiliation and dishonour. I welcome the new clause and I am very glad that the Government, encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and perhaps by the example of New Zealand, have taken this course.
	But it is not an easy question and it is deserving of careful analysis. To modern minds, it is rather surprising that the British Army in 1914 went to war with so wide a swathe of offences capable of attracting, in the discretion of courts martial, a capital sentence. The offences are listed in the new clause with one exception—treachery. Probably the reason for that is that there was no execution for that offence in the First World War.
	But then was then and, in the hardly imaginable circumstances in which much of that war was fought, it was generally felt within the Armed Forces that the wide availability of capital punishment was necessary for the maintenance of discipline and to fortify the courage of others. I am confident that that was the view of my own father, who was a front-line officer in France and Flanders from 1915 onwards, and he was a kind man. I do not think that we are today in any proper position to challenge, let alone criticise, the practical beliefs of that terrible time. It is interesting to note that, within fewer than 12 years from the end of the war, Parliament had limited the military offences punishable with death to treachery and mutiny alone.
	My support for the clause does not derive from any desire to rewrite history. Indeed, the clause makes it specifically clear that it is not doing that; it does not affect any conviction or sentence. My support derives from the gross inadequacy of the procedures—which were required and supposed to be judicial in character—by which the law in respect of those offences was enforced. By any objective standards, they were generally travesties of justice. If anyone doubts that, I recommend them to read a book published in 1983 written by His Honour Judge Anthony Babington QC, who had a gallant record in World War II and was gravely wounded. He conducted meticulous research into the 318 traceable executions in the British Army relating to the war. Perhaps I may quote five sentences from the book's preface. It states:
	"Viewed by the standards of today few of the executed men received the most elemental form of justice. They were tried and sentenced by courts which often regarded themselves as mere components of the penal process and which, until the final year of the war, were asked to perform a complex judicial function without any sort of legal guidance. The cases for the accused were seldom presented adequately and sometimes were never presented at all. If crucial matters were raised which might have established their innocence they were rarely investigated by members of the court".
	I omit two sentences for brevity's sake.
	"What made it even worse was the fact that the decision of a court martial was virtually unappealable".
	It is this which, in Judge Babington's words, has,
	"ever since given rise to a profound uneasiness in the national conscience".
	And he comments that that uneasiness was,
	"more than justified".
	It is absolutely right and fair that the point should have been made that the Commander-in-Chief commuted all but 10 per cent of those capital sentences. I very much agree with the comments that there is no implicit criticism of that great man. But some, I know, will fasten on the words,
	"Viewed by the standards of today".
	Where living people—related families—are suffering continuing distress from the outcome of proceedings that today we see in the main to have failed the most elementary tests of fairness, surely it would be wrong to say to them, "We will do nothing to palliate your pain; those were the admittedly woeful standards of that time, but for your relatives—and for you—that must remain simply bad luck". I do not think that I can find any towering principle in that.
	It is not necessary to take special account of the extreme youth of so many of these soldiers, nor the fact that many of them had volunteered to serve, sometimes falsifying their age to do so. There is quite enough already to show that the humane and just, as well as the constitutionally sound, course is not to overturn the convictions, not to overturn the sentences, not to impugn the decisions of the Commander-in-Chief, but to effect posthumous pardons for these unhappy men. I support the new clause.

Lord Selsdon: Perhaps I may be a little personal about this, because this is sensitive amendment which has been introduced in an intelligent way. However, I was always told that history could not be written until the last person who was alive at the time was dead. We can look at past perfect or future perfect, but most of us will have no memory of those times or—I will probably become a little emotional—just a second-hand memory.
	My grandfather won the Sword of Honour at Dartmouth and was invalided out of the Navy just before the war, and he wanted to fight. He had a brother-in-law, my uncle Sir Stafford Cripps, who also wanted to fight, but he was too ill to do so. The two of them got together with others in a double-decker bus and went off to the front. When they arrived, they asked, "What can we do?" They were told that they could be medical orderlies. They then wrote a letter back to their father-in-law, J. C. Eno, who had invented Eno's Fruit Salts, asking for some help. Eno went to his car-maker and had a special ambulance made, which he sent out to the front, and my grandfather and my uncle both became stretcher-bearers.
	My grandfather would talk to me at the age of six and seven and tell me what it was like—that he had to go out to pick people up from no-man's-land, which as a child I called "nobody's place". He had to try to find limbs to match people who had been wounded and bring them back. He took people in to have limbs amputated by surgeons and then buried the limbs, only to find that they had been dug up by wild dogs. He said that this was the most terrible time that anybody could have. Sometimes, they would have to go with a stretcher to collect someone who had been shot at dawn. He said that, on one occasion, a man was standing there whom he heard say that he did not want to be blindfolded in any way. He brought him back and there was his brother, who was still alive.
	Obviously, you cry as a child sometimes when you try to think as a man. You realise that these were terrible, emotional times. My grandfather and Uncle Stafford—he would never talk about it afterwards—would try to explain that, while these people had been wounded or shot, all people at the front suffered from emotional stress; that mental illness was the same as physical illness; and that there were people who actually prayed that they would be wounded so that they could escape. Whatever the law may have been at that time, and whatever the rules were, you could almost say that the immortal memory of those awful times is more important. We who did not live in those times will never know them, but I will always remember my grandfather. I therefore support this amendment entirely.

Lord Tebbit: I hope that the Committee will forgive my speaking, not having heard the earlier speeches, but I was committed—curiously, in view of the subject of the amendment—to be with the Czech ambassador at the laying of a wreath to the last of the Czech fighter pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain, and who was remembered today at the Battle of Britain monument on the Embankment. So the enormously difficult circumstances in both the Second, and even more so, in the First World War, have been much in my mind.
	Like most noble Lords, it is the case for my family that my father and his younger brother volunteered to join the Army in 1914 and fought through the war as infantrymen in the Middlesex Regiment. Quite remarkably, both survived. I found myself wondering what my father or my uncle would have said about this. I think they would have been very understanding about the sheer horror of the man whose nerve cracks; the man who is in fact simply no longer in control of himself. But I think they would have had the gravest of reservations about exercising any form of pardon for those, for example, who had deserted their post, or had simply fallen asleep while they were on duty as sentries and thereby imperilled their colleagues. Therefore, there is some hesitation in my mind about the amendment.
	It is both a pity and perhaps also a good thing at the same time that, as I understand it, the records are now so imperfect that there can be little distinction between the offences of which men were accused and found guilty and for which they paid with their lives. It is probably an act of humanity and generosity towards the families of those who suffered this fate; recognising that almost by any standards, even perhaps by the standards of the time, some of these sentences were unjust. We have to recognise that; but we also have to recognise that some of those who will receive pardons under this proposal do not deserve to have been pardoned.
	I always have hesitations about revisionism of history. What happened did happen. We are edging onto very dangerous ground in what we are doing, because it is being done in a manner that does not distinguish between those who genuinely suffered an injustice and those who deserved punishment. Once we start going into that second area, we are substituting our views today of what would have been the right punishment for that crime in the views of the people of that time. I think that is dangerous. I do not like saying that that which happened did not; or that that which was, was not. So I do not think that I can bring myself to vote against this, but we should understand that it is an amendment with very many faults, and if it is accepted it should be accepted as being a very imperfect instrument.

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon: Like the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, I apologise to the Committee for having come in just a few minutes after the debate started, again for unavoidable reasons. In quite a long political career, I have not on many occasions found myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and disagreeing with a man whom I respect very much, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. But this amendment gives me very grave cause for concern.
	Is this a sentimental thing to do? Yes, it is. Is it an understandable thing to do? Yes, it is. Is it a good thing to do? I listened to the right reverend Prelate. In so far as it relieves suffering today among the relatives and families; yes, no doubt it is. Is it a human thing to do? I think it is that, too. Is it a political thing to do? I say to the Minister that I suspect that there is a good deal of politics in this issue, not least because it has been introduced in this strange way and because there has been a complete 180 degree turn, but the Minister will no doubt have his own comments to make about that. But is it a wise thing to do? I do not think that it is, in part for the reasons articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit.
	I do not believe that it is open to us, by revisiting history in this way, to reverse decisions taken legally at the time, according to a law passed by the Parliament expressing the public will at the time. I do not believe that it is right for us to revisit the judgments made at the time. The argument was put forward that some of these cases were inadequately proceeded with and that the procedures were fallible, but fallibility is part of the human condition and it has to be part of the condition of justice. If we said that we should pardon people simply because some of the trials were fallible, where would it end?
	Above all, I cannot accept the case that, by doing this very human thing and pardoning those people without full knowledge of the facts, we do not in some way impugn the judgments of those who made the decisions according to law passed by Parliament under the conditions of the day. The Minister says that we will not do that, and noble Lords have said in several interventions that the amendment does not in any way draw those decisions into question. But it must—it can have no other effect. You cannot, simply by stating the case that it does not impugn the judgments of those who made these decisions at the time, say that therefore there is no impugnment of their judgments. You cannot, simply by putting a clause in law, give substance to that wispy claim.
	The reality is that if we say that, according to the judgments of our time, these people are pardoned, then according to the judgments of our time the decisions made at the time were wrong. I do not believe that it is open to us to do that. Therefore, although I understand all the sentiments behind the amendment and although I wish to relieve the suffering of the relatives, this is an unwise move for us to make. It is one that could create precedents for the future and it cannot but have the effect of impugning the judgment of the people who made those very difficult decisions at the time. It cannot but have the effect of revisiting history, which is very dangerous, and putting the gloss and judgments of today on decisions made in conditions which we cannot in our time and at this distance make proper judgments about.

Earl Attlee: I rise briefly to urge the Minister to accept this amendment, or something similar.

Lord Drayson: I recognise that this is an important area of the Bill. It is a subject on which we have had many discussions over the past months during the Bill's passage, both in this House and at the briefings at the Ministry of Defence. We recognise the strong feelings about it not only in this House but also, as the noble Lord has just emphasised, in the Armed Forces, particularly the Army.
	I shall cover Amendment No. 185 and the points about qualifications first, because it is important for me to stress upfront that the issue here is how we can best meet these concerns. We do not believe that doing so in the Bill would be the most pragmatically effective way, as I shall explain.
	Noble Lords will understand that the minimum qualifications required to hold the post of director are prescribed in the Bill. These are minimum legal qualifications, which do not amount to a personal specification for recruiting purposes. I also remind noble Lords that my right honourable friend the then Secretary of State said in the other place that it is important that the Director of Service Prosecutions should have relevant service experience. Moreover, under the Bill the prosecuting officers will all be serving officers.
	It is our intention that one of the essential requirements for the director should be service experience. However, we believe that we could find ourselves in difficulties if we sought to define in the Bill the kind of service experience that is required. As the noble Lord, Lord Garden, mentioned, that is very difficult to do. Are we talking about someone who held a short service commission maybe 10 years ago? That counts as service experience. Or are we talking about someone who has been in the front line of operations? Not many lawyers are in the front line of operations, although in recent years they have increasingly served in operational theatres. However, that is not the case for our more senior service lawyers.
	Rather than finding ourselves in difficulty by putting that requirement in the Bill, we propose to do it through the recruitment process. I recognise that, in their amendment, noble and gallant Lords are looking to put that requirement in the Bill, so we will need to convince them that the recruitment process will be sufficiently robust to meet their concerns. We envisage that the selection panel will be chaired by a Civil Service commissioner and that the vice-chief of the defence staff, on behalf of the chiefs, will be a member, together with a senior member of the judiciary.
	Amendment No. 186, which seeks to quantify the type of service experience in terms of years, would mean that we would miss the point regarding the nature and location of that experience. We need to make a qualitative assessment of the type of experience that a candidate for the post has had. Ensuring that the selection panel has on it someone who is in a position to make that judgment is the most effective way of deciding who is to be appointed to the post.
	The qualifications of candidates will be a much better way of narrowing down the sort of experience that we want the director to have. Moreover, they are not confined to military qualifications. This will be a demanding post and we will wish to appoint a director who in all aspects is an outstanding individual. This means that he will need, in addition to service experience, a proven track record in relevant legal skills, leadership and what we might term "management skills".
	I have referred to service experience. By this I mean an understanding of service life and the operations of each of the services and of the needs and the working of a service system of justice and discipline. This will be essential if the director is to develop effective relationships and enjoy the confidence of the Armed Forces while maintaining prosecutorial independence.
	If the requirement is drawn too tightly in the Bill or in regulations, we could find ourselves excluding the person whom we are really looking for—the best person for the job. I feel sure that there are people of the right calibre currently serving who could do this job, but it is vital that a director is appointed on merit in a competitive field, which could include civilians who have relevant experience of the services. That is the way to ensure that we get the right person for the job, rather than recruiting from a narrow field and perpetually running the risk of criticism that there were better external candidates.
	The proposed recruitment process will draw on the one used successfully to appoint the Director of Public Prosecutions. There will be a small, independently chaired panel which will make a recommendation to Her Majesty. As I have said, we intend that a very senior serving officer representing the chiefs of staff will be a member of the panel. I hope that this will give precisely the assurances that noble Lords are seeking through their amendments.
	The recruitment process, job specification and terms and conditions against which the director is appointed will also be agreed with the services. It is inconceivable therefore that the director would be someone who is unacceptable to the services. For the reasons that I have given, I invite the noble and gallant Lord to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Garden: The Minister's reply contained no surprises in the sense that it restated the position as it is. The only area at which I will need to look further is my question whether the Government's amendments have fully taken on board paragraph 26 to the 23rd report of Delegated Powers Regulatory Reform Committee, which recommends that the power in Clause 334(5) shall also be subject to the affirmative procedure, in that the amendment relates to paragraph (a) of that subsection.
	It may sound like a detail but these delegated powers are remarkably important, so we could perhaps discuss that and come back to it, particularly as the government amendments have re-jigged the way in which they have been presented at rather late notice, and I may not have caught all the subtleties of it.

Lord Drayson: As noble Lords will be aware, and as we have discussed at the briefings, the implementation of this Bill will be a huge task. It is not one that we undertake lightly, and it is one that the department has put a little thought into. We are determined to ensure that the transition to this Bill from the current to the new military criminal justice system will be as smooth as possible.
	To that end, we have sought to identify areas where the current systems under the service discipline Acts may be suitable for early change. We want to avoid on the one hand a single step implementation, which might for certain key stakeholders be unmanageable and, on the other hand, to have a period of constant change leading up to full implementation. But of course where the Bill would introduce improvements to the operation of the military criminal justice system and can be introduced early, we should take the opportunity to do so.
	Amendments Nos. 203A to 203C introduce a carefully developed package of alignment measures designed to move the current system closer to the post-Bill system to make an important start to this process. These measures will allow us to bring early and significant improvements to current practices in the relatively short term.
	I shall be happy to go into detail if noble Lords wish it. Perhaps I can draw attention to just a couple of the provisions. First, we are introducing a power to arraign an accused before a judge advocate sitting alone, and for the judge advocate to make preliminary rulings, including the taking of binding pleas. We are confident that this will help streamline procedures, thereby reducing delay.
	Secondly, it amends the Naval Discipline Act 1957 to provide for the Judge Advocate General to subsume all of the functions of the Judge Advocate of the Fleet before full implementation of the Bill. Noble Lords will know that the post of the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, which has existed since 1663 and has served the Royal Navy so very well, is to lapse. His Honour Judge John Sessions, who will have been Judge Advocate of the Fleet since 1995, will therefore be the last Judge Advocate of the Fleet. I am sure noble Lords will wish to thank Judge Sessions for his excellent support to the Royal Navy which has maintained the highest tradition of service set by all of his illustrious predecessors.
	Amendment No. 203D to Schedule 17 simply adds those parts of the service discipline Acts amended by Schedule 16 to the primary and secondary legislation which is repealed or revoked by the Bill. The power created by Amendment No. 205 will permit us to continue to identify opportunities for alignment. We will use it in a structured way and where two tests are met: first, the services should consider whether there is, in their view, a strong business case for any aligning step; secondly, whether the step they propose is feasible to introduce, taking into account the drafting load within the overall implementation programme. Any extra work cannot prejudice full implementation.
	We will focus, in particular, on steps which will bring benefits to the efficiency and fairness of the military criminal justice system, and which will particularly benefit the key stakeholders in it: commanding officers, discipline staff and the service police. I remind your Lordships that orders made under the alignment power will require the affirmative resolution procedure.
	In view of this explanation, I hope that noble Lords will support these amendments. I beg to move.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: I welcome the provisions for preliminary hearings as to plea, which is very important in saving time. It will be appreciated that courts martial do not come into existence until they are convened. It has therefore been very difficult to take a binding plea before that step. We now more closely approach the procedures of the civil court and Crown Court. There are considerable advantages to all sides from this step.
	I also associate these Benches with the goodwill and thanks transmitted to Judge John Sessions on his retirement from being Judge Advocate of Her Majesty's Fleet. I said earlier that there is too much tradition in military law and procedure, and here we see an example of it disappearing. From 1663 to now is a pretty good time span for the position of Judge Advocate of Her Majesty's Fleet. It has a wonderful sound to it, and takes us back to the three-masted vessels of that time—almost to Elizabethan times. No doubt there have been many illustrious forebears to the current Judge Advocate of the Fleet, and we remember them at this minute.

Lord Garden: I am sorry to come back to earth; there is a small amendment of mine tucked in this grouping. Amendment No. 204 is separate from the various government amendments. It looks like a remarkably simple amendment—just to add the word "not"—but I am afraid it changes the sense of what the Government are trying to achieve.
	Clause 373 deals with transitional arrangements. Clause 373(6) allows the Armed Forces Act to work in anticipation of the coming into force of Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. I am seeking to find out why this should be done, particularly with regard to the under-21s and custodial sentences. The Explanatory Notes—which have been remarkably useful and are very clear compared with those for some Bills—state that it is to allow the current procedures for the imprisonment of 18-to-20 year-olds under the service discipline Acts, but Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 has still not been brought in after six years. The Ministry of Defence is not usually in the vanguard of advances in public law and the like, and the aim of my amendment is to question why we should use the Bill as a vehicle for achieving something in the military that we have not yet managed to achieve on the civil side.

Lord Drayson: I will be brief. We are all agreed that the Armed Forces Bill, once enacted, should be subject to the same renewal provisions as the current service discipline Acts. Parliamentary oversight and approval of these provisions is important. I have absolutely no doubt of the good intentions of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, but I believe that the amendments as drafted achieve no more than the current wording do. I will reflect on what he said about the need to emphasise these matters in certain quarters. In reality, however, it makes no difference whether these provisions are in one or two clauses and whether they come at the start or, as is the custom, at the end of the Bill. The important thing is that they are there. It may be helpful if I make it clear that, as the provisions of the new Act are brought into force, the related provisions of the existing Acts will be repealed. I hope that the noble Earl will agree to withdraw his amendment.